


Ordinary Moments

by springsdandelion (writergirlie)



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-09
Updated: 2012-04-09
Packaged: 2017-11-03 09:07:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/379680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writergirlie/pseuds/springsdandelion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An "ordinary life" once seemed like an impossibility to Katniss once. Now, it's a gift she treasures.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ordinary Moments

I’m in the middle of chopping up dandelion greens for our salad when Peeta bends down to kiss my temple.

 

“I’m going into town.” He shrugs on his coat, shoving his hands inside the pockets for his gloves, until he must have remembered that he’d left them at the bakery this morning.

 

“Now?”

 

“I need to get there before the shops close. We, um… need a plunger.”

 

I feel a groan rising in my chest.

 

“I’m afraid to ask…”

 

“There was an incident in the guest bath,” he says—with an admirable attempt at a straight face. _Admirable_ being the key word. The stomping of little feet thunders nearby, approaching the kitchen, and Peeta leans in a little closer, unable to resist a grin this time. I can’t help but notice that it’s one of the conspiratorial variety. I brace myself. “The boy decided to have himself a little experiment.”

 

“Ben flushed his toy duck down the toilet!”

 

I turn to find the children standing at the entry way of the kitchen, my daughter barely able to contain her amusement, while her brother wails, clutching the deformed head of what is now a decapitated duck, the discarded carcass of which, according to Peeta, is now clogging the toilet in the spare bathroom. Hope begins to pat Ben awkwardly on the head, seemingly torn over laughing at his expense and offering him some dose of comfort that only a big sister can bring. Ben is inconsolable, though, and only grows more despondent, as he attempts to string together a clunky sentence in his broken, three-year old version of the English language.

 

I think I’m able to make out the words, “bad” and “ducky,” but really, I’m only guessing, and it’s at this point Peeta abandons all pretense of maintaining any kind of composure, chuckling unabashedly as he leans over to kiss me again.

 

“I’ll be back in time for dinner.”

 

Now I’m fighting my own grin, in spite of myself.

 

“You’d better.”

 

* * *

 

It takes nearly an hour to calm Ben down, and another thirty-five minutes after that before Peeta finally comes home, bearing a plunger and his gloves, and a special package of iced lemon cookies—their favorite—with intricate dragonflies painted in the frosting. For dessert, he explains, and for being late, since the hardware store was out of plungers and he’d had to borrow one from Greasy Sae.

 

“I made these this morning,” he’s telling the children, who gather around the table to admire the cookies after Peeta unwraps the package and sets them down, their mouths forming silent “o”s and eyes widening to the size of saucers. “I set them aside so no one could buy them, because I made them especially for you.”

 

He smiles as he watches them, and it’s clear that he’s reveling in this. When he was growing up, Peeta and his brothers had to make do with the rejected, day-old goods from their bakery, never getting to taste the fruits of their own labor: the warm, crusty breads with dough as fluffy as clouds; the cakes frosted with spun sugar; the pastries bursting with fruit and cheese. Peeta was determined not to deny his own children the pleasure of what his customers so readily enjoy.

 

He must be feeling the weight of my stare, because all of a sudden, he looks up at me and raises his eyebrows, then tells the children in a more authoritative tone, “But you’ll have to eat all of your vegetables first before you get these.”

 

Hope looks up pleadingly. He may as well have told her she had to roll around in mud. “Even the brussells sprouts?”

 

Peeta taps her good-naturedly on the nose. “Yes, kiddo,” he says. “Even the brussells sprouts. But you’re in luck—they’re your mother’s specialty, which means they’ll be extra tasty.”

 

He straightens to grin at me and as the children scramble to get settled at the table, he slips an arm over the small of my back to draw me into him for a kiss.

 

“How that for a little negotiating?”

 

“I’d say it’s a good use of those powers of persuasion.”

 

“I know I shouldn’t have tempted them with dessert first, but-” He stops short and looks at me, his mouth starting to form a bewildered smile. “What?”

 

“Nothing.”

 

“You were staring.”

 

“Ok, I was staring. And thinking.”

 

“About what?”

 

“Just… that life is so… _ordinary_ now.”

 

“Oh.”

 

The smile on his face falters, and starts to dim. A small panic starts to trickle through my bloodstream; I’ve said the wrong thing—or tried to say the right thing, but it came out in the wrong way—but I just don’t have his gift with words. He starts to turn away from me, but I cup his chin and gently bring his face back around to look at me again.

 

“But I’m glad it is. Ordinary.”

 

His brow is still creased. I can tell he’s looking for a little more explanation.

 

“It’s just that… when everything was in chaos and I didn’t know which way was up… a normal life seemed like such a luxury.” My throat is starting to tighten in that familiar way, the warning sign that always lets me know I need to pause or else my voice will crack, leaving me bare for all the world to see. “And now…”

 

“And now…”

 

I look at the children, animatedly chatting away about their father’s icing design and the song Hope sang at school that morning, and the duck that Ben is vowing to bring back to life, once “Daddy gets his body back,” and I smile.

 

“Now I wouldn’t trade my ordinary life for anything in the world.”


End file.
